


Out of Touch

by delatrose



Category: Universal Century Gundam
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21864877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delatrose/pseuds/delatrose
Summary: Garma tells Char about his lost childhood.
Kudos: 8





	Out of Touch

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is just a couple of my own headcanons filtered into a story bc that's how i talk about them best but once again i fall onto songs to create a title 😅 (i promise i had a good one earlier i just forgot).
> 
> i was going to make this an extra for my other story but i think a conversation like this probably happens in like every au i could possibly think of (except ofc ones where zeon lives lol)

“Astraia was like a mother to me.” The words make him freeze. Despite the topic, the intensity of the statement is unexpected and he turns to Garma whom he can only see through the fluttering fabric of a sheet as he unfolds it in the air.

“Oh?” Char’s not sure if he believes him. Sure they had hung out often as children, but he can’t see how Garma and his mother were that close. He takes his own fitted sheet out of the laundry basket and flaps it out as Garma lays his over each corner.

“As close to one as I ever had at least. It’s not as if Kycilia’s a motherly person and nannies just scold you, but Astraia was someone who just let me be a kid. No pomp or circumstance, just a boy and his auntie. Her and her two kids were the only people I could be myself around, though I don’t know if Casval liked me very much to be honest.” Garma laughs awkwardly at himself though his smile is fond. He knows he’s treading on dangerous territory here, but he wants to know more. It’s masochistic, for sure, but this is a rare opportunity and might also get him closer to his target.

“Didn’t she die under your family’s care?” he asks since it’s common knowledge. His body is screaming at him to lash out but he has to hold it back, he can’t give away his position under any circumstances. Garma stops, kneeling over his bed with his head hung low.

“She… did. I was so young and there was little I could do, her children went somewhere too, I still don’t know where. But I tried to go and see her when she was… they locked her away and they wouldn’t let me see her. I know I probably don’t have the right to complain but I wish that Zeon had never died, that things could stay as they had been. Maybe it’s childish, but I… never mind.”

“You can’t change the past.” And you can’t take back what your family has done, he adds mentally. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t like what’s come to be, it still happened and he still profits from it even if he can’t see it himself.

“I know, it’s not like it would make things better anyway.” He laughs again and slips the last corner of his fitted sheet under the bed. Char knows he could get himself into hot water like this, but he’s almost too intrigued now to let it go like Garma seems to want him to.

“What about her children?” he asks as they lay their flat sheets down.

“Hm, well, I don’t know what happened to them. I overheard Casval died a year or so ago but my brother doesn’t believe it. They’re always very secretive about the Deikuns, I think it’s because of how much I cried at Astraia’s funeral. I really was such a baby about it, none of them expected it. And Artesia, I think she’s somewhere out there and I hope she’s happy. I wonder if she got a new kitten? She used to have one named Lucifer, it was so cute, but I doubt it’s still around.”

“I’m sure she did.” He’s not, but he has to believe she is and Garma seems to appreciate it either way. “But you didn’t cry for Casval?”

“Well we don’t have a body so we can’t know for sure, right? I like to believe my brother is right.”

“Which brother?”

“Gihren, it’s odd for him to be optimistic so I have to take the times he is to heart.” He’s probably not being optimistic then, just taunting Kycilia on her inability to finish the job, but he doesn’t say anything about that.

“Hm.” It feels weird in his gut, he doesn’t think he’s thought about Garma nearly as much as he seems to have thought about them. Artesia brought him up a couple of times but he’s never given the kid too much thought outside his own revenge. But here he’d been going over their childhood over and over in his own mind and wishing they could go back to it.

It seems just like him, such an expected level of naivete. Such idealism with no substance, that he thinks he lives in the same reality as anyone else. He’s so privileged he can’t see the truth of his own situation. But there’s something sweet about it too and images of a happy, quiet childhood on Side Three filter through his mind as he finds himself falling for Garma’s naivete for a moment.

These ridiculous dreams shouldn’t sway him. Can’t sway him. He thinks it over a little more and it all starts coming apart at the seams, the childhood Garma envisioned, his attachment to Char and his family, none of it is real. It’s just as he thought, a dream. Garma’s family had always planned to destroy his own and there was nothing that could turn it back around. He is who he is because of it, trying to imagine his life any other way is just pointless.

Char jumps back onto his freshly made bed and watches Garma sit carefully on his own down below in his periphery.

“It doesn’t matter, dreams can only ever be dreams,” he tells Garma. He has a deep desire to punch something, maybe he can convince Garma to go to the gym after they finish cleaning.

“You’re right,” Garma agrees. “I was weak back then but I can’t be now, not anymore.” He looks determined and Char smirks at him. There’s little hope he’ll ever move past that weakness, they’re both stuck in it. Stuck in a memory of a lost childhood that will never exist. And it’s exactly why he shouldn’t exist.

**Author's Note:**

> i must say i think there's a lot more to garma saying he doesn't like his family than char gives him credit for v_v
> 
> but then again i can also see char's side well? i think it's a complicated issue and im mad that it wasn't explored more but i also understand why garma died so early in order to move the plot ahead but i just. have so many thoughts about him and i think about his character often, what he could become and the potential of his development...
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this!!! pls comment and kudos if you want!! find me @delatrose on twt and @mechaking on tumblr


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